There’s a huge art party in an eight-story building downtown! Also, a new art fair!
But first, let’s talk about Seattle Art Museum Workers United (SAMWU), the new union recently formed and announced last week. It represents over 100 employees from a range of departments (with the exception of security guards, who already have a union). They’re asking for better wages and working conditions across the board.
I’m sure there are two sides to the story here: Museums have budgets to adhere to and bills to pay. Arts institutions everywhere are struggling due to shrinking public funding and the wobbling economy. However, the institutional ship of SAM is steered by a Board of Trustees with immense collective wealth and influence. This is an opportunity for the institution to do right by the people who keep it running.
If you have a SAM membership, maybe send a note of support for the staff. Tell them you’d like museum workers treated with at least as much care as the Calders.
Art fair season is around the corner, and this year, Seattle Art Fair will be joined by Assembly Art Fair, a new invitational contemporary art fair spearheaded by Greg Kucera Gallery and Traver Gallery that promises “a focused, dialogue-driven alternative to the conventional fair model.”
“Seattle’s collector community has grown substantially, and there is a clear appetite for an event that prioritizes curatorial depth over scale,” said Sarah Traver, Director of Traver Gallery, in a press release Monday. “Assembly is grounded in the idea that fewer, more considered presentations, set within a striking architectural space, create the conditions for true discovery and deeper engagement.”
Concurrent with SAF (July 22–26), Assembly will be held at West Canal Yards—no booths or aggressive overhead fluorescent lighting in sight. Confirmed participants include Greg Kucera Gallery, Traver Gallery, PDX Contemporary Art, Russo Lee Gallery, Foster/White Gallery, J. Rinehart Gallery, studio e gallery, AMcE Creative Arts, and Hall Spassov Gallery.
That’s a lot of local galleries. When asked if these galleries will also be participating in the Seattle Art Fair, Sarah Traver confirmed that her gallery and Greg Kucera Gallery will not. Rather, they are “focusing our energy on Assembly and building something that feels distinct in format, scale, and community. In fact,” she continued, “most of the participating galleries are focusing solely on Assembly this year.” She says that SAF has been very supportive, and the two organizations are discussing shuttle options.
On a phone call earlier today, Traver expanded on the motivation behind the move: “Art fairs are complicated math for galleries,” she said. “It’s really expensive to participate, and if the sales aren’t there, it’s hard to justify spending the money. We’re just trying to figure out a model that feels sustainable. Since [Assembly] is gallery-led, we’re able to keep the costs low. All the galleries are contributing to all the shared expenses, from security and catering to marketing. And we’re going for full financial transparency. Nobody’s trying to make money on the fair itself.”
Assembly Art Fair will open with a VIP preview on Wednesday, July 22, followed by public hours Thursday through Sunday, July 23–26.
In the meantime, here are some things to keep on your radar:
May 22: Eight-story art party at Parnassus
Last month Base Camp Community (the parent nonprofit responsible for Base Camp Studios), raised $2.8 million to purchase the eight-story Gibraltar Tower, located across from Westlake Plaza at 1518 Third Ave. It’s a big, beautiful office building that looks like it hasn’t been occupied (or remodeled) since the 1990s dot com boom (just wait till you see the decor). The plan is to renovate the entire building and turn it into affordable housing units and studio space for artists.
This very ambitious project, called Parnassus (on account of all the muses that will be living there), is beyond exciting. Along with Common Area Maintenance’s recent purchase of the El Rey, we seem to have a welcome trend on our hands: feasible grassroots business models to rescue our downtown from ruin, while helping ameliorate a desperately awful artist affordability situation.
Parnassus is hosting an open house this Friday from 5–9 p.m. A loose plan for the evening is reported to include DJs, food and bar, a few floors of new studio artists, one floor of art curated by Jackson O’Rourke of Geheim Gallery and Experience Research Lab. If you want a full tour of the building, they’re offering those, too, starting on the hour at 5, 6, 7, and 8 p.m. (Enter and exit on the 4th Ave. side at 1525 4th Avenue. ADA entrance on 3rd Avenue available upon request.)
Recs and openings:
In museum news, Monochrome: Calder and Tara Donovan at Seattle Art Museum is the third in a series wherein artists are invited to respond to works by Alexander Calder in the museum’s collection. Drawn to the matte black of Calder’s Mountains (1:5 Intermediate Maquette), Donovan responded by creating sculptural installations that play with the idea of monochrome. The new pieces at SAM are made from hundreds of thousands of everyday objects: coffee stir straws, torn pieces of tar paper, silver Mylar, and deconstructed Slinkys soldered together to make massive, scintillating structures that crawl up the wall.
The new Tom Lloyd exhibit at the Frye Art Museum comes with a warning: there are (lots of) flashing lights! Artist, activist, and community organizer Tom Lloyd was a pioneer of using electric light as an artistic medium, but his groundbreaking work has only recently received the attention and scholarship it deserves. The Frye brings together 20 years of Lloyd’s assemblages, works on paper, and electronically programmed light sculptures, made in the 1960s in collaboration with an engineer at the Radio Corporation of America. These works were radically experimental at the time and broke the mold of what Black artists were expected to make. They’re still radically beautiful today (and the soft clacking sound of the mechanical sequencing is a magical kind of ASMR).
In gallery news: if you missed the opening reception for Once Wild River at Mini Mart City Park, catch an artist panel on May 21, moderated by C. Davida Ingram in conversation with Timothy White Eagle, Crystal Cortex, Epiphany Couch, Laura C Wright, and Sarah Kavage (6–8 p.m.). Note: Once Wild River wraps with a closing reception on June 21, which will also feature a closing ceremony by White Eagle.
Orders of Nearness: Emily Counts, Matt Jones & Erin Milez opens on May 23 at studio e, with an artist talk from 3–4 p.m. and reception from 5–7 p.m. Many will be familiar with Counts’s ceramic work—gold luster-gilt creatures and familiars often lit from within. Jones and Milez make for a delightful trifecta of viewpoints grounded in lush color, with a touch of magic realism sensibility.
On May 28, Tacoma Art Museum debuts work by Epiphany Couch in the latest installment of its Project NW gallery, with an opportunity to hear the artist in conversation with curator Ellen Ito, from 6–8 p.m. As mentioned previously, Project NW is a curatorial gem, and has become a place to keep an eye on.